Bella and the Wandering House (4 page)

She hadn't done that this time, though. She was sure she had put it in the basket.

Of course. It would be in the laundry, in the ironing pile Mum never quite reached the bottom of.

Bella looped her library bag over her shoulder and hurried downstairs.

Dad was on the phone, exasperation in his voice. ‘There isn't really an address. It's the big dam in the hills … a wooden house with a number 6.' He sighed. ‘I told you – there's no street name. Just a number. But it's the only house here. You can't miss it.'

In the laundry, Bella flicked through the pile, all the way to the bottom. She found a T-shirt she'd been missing since last year but no sports uniform.

‘Mum!' she called out. ‘Have you seen my sports stuff?'

Footsteps came down the hall. Mum appeared in the doorway. ‘It should be there somewhere. Unless it's … oh.' She stared past Bella out the window. ‘I left it on the line.'

Bella followed Mum's gaze. There should have been a yard out there. A yard with a washing line. Where a sports uniform hung, flapping in the breeze.

Instead there were trees and dirt and a big, muddy dam.

Mum sighed. ‘I guess I'll have to write you a note.'

Bella supposed that would have to do. At least she wouldn't get into trouble, even if she did have to sit under a tree keeping score while everyone else played kickball.

She did wonder what Mum would write, though.
Washing line too far away
?
Couldn't find yard
?

And what if the house didn't go home tonight? It was so far this time. Would they even be able to go back and get the car and
the washing and all the other things that were stuck there? And what about the things they couldn't get at all – like her cubbyhouse and the trampoline?

Bella pictured them in the yard, all huddled around a big empty space where the house should be.

It had only been for one night but now it was two. What if it was three and then four and then a week and then …

It couldn't be, could it? But what if it was?

What if the house never went home again?

‘Faster!'

‘Harder!'

‘No pain, no gain!'

There was more yelling the next morning, but this time it wasn't Mum and Dad.

The house had settled on a grassy oval next to a sports centre. Outside, people ran up and down, doing exercises and lifting weights; others swam laps in a pool. Whistles blew and timers buzzed. The sharp smell of chlorine drifted in on the breeze.

The day after that, they were in another park. A fountain bubbled in a nearby pond; fat
orange fish flashed back and forth, rippling the surface.

Every day, Bella woke up to strangeness, and every day it seemed to get bigger and bigger. One morning, they were on a sandbar in the middle of the river. Seagulls squawked outside her window, swooping past her circle of sky to skim low across the water. Early morning kayakers paddled past in the mist and fishermen cast lines from a jetty on the far shore.

They had to stay home that day. There was water all around them and no way across it. The house must have waded here like a stork, Bella thought. Until it decided to go back, there was nothing they could do.

Even worse, they couldn't call to let people know where they were. No matter how unsensibly far Mum leaned out of Bella's window, she couldn't get a signal on her phone.

‘This is ridiculous!' she said. ‘I can't just not
show up for work!'

Dad helped her down from the window. He stared out at the river with a sigh. ‘I think this has gone far enough, don't you?'

‘Definitely.' Mum nodded. ‘I'll call the movers as soon as we get back into range.'

Bella frowned. ‘What movers?'

‘The house movers,' said Dad. ‘If the house won't go home we'll just have to take it there.'

‘But how can you move a house?'

‘They'll put it on a truck,' Mum said. ‘People do it sometimes. They buy a house in one place and move it to where they want to live.'

Bella stared at her. ‘They must be big trucks.'

‘They are,' Dad said. ‘Of course they can't usually do the whole house at once. They have to do two trips.'

‘Two trips?' Something unsettling niggled at the edge of Bella's thoughts. ‘But how …?'

‘They cut them in half,' Dad said. ‘With
a chainsaw. Sometimes they take the roof off, too. They might have to do that for ours, because of the second storey. Otherwise they'll get stuck going under bridges and –'

‘
Cut them
?' Bella gasped. ‘But you can't cut the house! It –'

She didn't finish. The house lurched suddenly, pitching forward. Bella tumbled against Mum and had to grab for the windowsill.

Mum put an arm out to steady her. ‘Good heavens! What on earth …?'

Behind them, the door slammed loudly.

‘It's the sand,' Dad said. ‘It's too soft.' He looked down at Bella. ‘You see? It's dangerous, what the house is doing. It's best for everyone that we put a stop to this.'

‘You don't have to worry,' Mum said. ‘They'll put it back together.'

Dad nodded. ‘Good as new.'

‘Maybe even better,' said Mum. ‘We might fix your room up a bit while we're at it. Get rid
of some of this crumbly old wood.'

‘But it doesn't need fixing,' Bella protested. ‘You can't let them cut it! Besides, what's the point when it can just take off again?'

‘We thought of that,' Dad said. ‘The movers
are going to set it into concrete for us, nice and deep.'

‘That's right.' Mum clapped her hands together, as if something important had been settled. ‘Once we're back home, we're staying for good.'

She smiled but Bella couldn't bring herself to smile back. All she could think of was the house, sliced in half like an apple, its spindly legs trapped in heavy concrete.

Beneath her hands, the wood seemed to tremble, as if the house itself were shivering.

Bella gripped the windowsill tightly. She had wanted to go home but not like this.

She had to do something.

That night, Bella stayed awake.

She sat in her window with the street directory and waited. She had traced a line across seven maps, all the way from the river back to their yard.

When the house began moving, she was ready. She waited while it waded through the water and out onto the shore. As it reached the street that ran alongside the riverbank, she swung the screen open and pointed. ‘That way!'

She glanced down. They wouldn't be on this map for long. She flicked to the next one, making sure of the route. They had a few
suburbs to get through; there were lots of turns to be made.

But as she did, the house swung the other way. It raised itself up tall, as if it were stretching its back, then set off in the opposite direction.

‘No!' Bella whispered urgently. ‘It's back there.'

But the house kept going.

‘All right,' she said. ‘The next one, then.'

There was a right turn coming up. If they took that, they could loop back onto the main road. As they approached, she shifted her weight to that side as if she were riding a horse.

‘This way!' She pointed again.

But the house kept going. At each corner it slowed, swinging back and forth, seeming to sniff the air before moving on. Once, it turned the way Bella wanted and her heart leapt a little. Maybe the house had finally understood?

But at the next corner it went the wrong way and when she rattled the window and
called out, ‘No! Stop!' the house picked up speed, sending a gust of wind into the room that made the curtains flap around her face so she couldn't see, and the map pages spin so she lost her place.

She dropped the street directory to the floor and put a hand to the wood. ‘Listen to me!' she said. ‘You have to go home. They're going to cut you in half!'

At her words, the house seemed to shiver. Faster and faster it went until it was almost running. And there was no rolling smoothness any more; Bella had to hold onto the window frame to keep her balance as they lurched wildly through the streets, all the way across the city and out the other side. They were heading into darkness now – no houses or streetlights to guide them as they stumbled on, each step taking them further and further away.

In the morning, they were in a paddock on a farm. Cows
moo
-ed outside and a fat brown duck flew over from a nearby dam. It perched
on the windowsill and peered in, tapping on the glass with its beak as if to say, ‘Hello? Anybody home?'

No. Bella sighed. Not home. Not anywhere.

She took the street directory down to breakfast and tried to work out where they were. She flipped through page after page, through big patches of empty space, before finally coming to a stop.

Usually, there was a number on the side telling you which map to turn to next. But this time there was nothing but a thick black line and the words ‘Limit of Maps'.

Dad leaned across from the other side of the table. He was still in his pyjamas.

‘We'll have to take today off too,' he said. ‘We'll never get a taxi all the way out here.' He waved out the window, where lumpy paddocks stretched as far as the eye could see. ‘But don't worry. It won't be for much longer. I've called the movers. They said they can fit us in on Friday.'

‘Just two more days,' Mum said. ‘Hopefully we won't be too far away by then.'

Bella frowned. Two more days? But that would make today Wednesday and …

Oh, no. It
was
Wednesday and that meant yesterday had been Tuesday and she should have been at Grandad's. She imagined him sitting all alone at the little table with his vanilla slice and his plate of crackers.

‘I have to call Grandad,' she said.

Mum's hands flew to her face. ‘Oh, dear. Of course.' She pointed to where her mobile lay on the bench. ‘Use mine.'

‘You'll have to go upstairs,' Dad said. ‘It's all fuzzy down here.'

But Bella was already on her way, dialling as she took the stairs two at a time.

‘Bella!' Grandad answered on the second ring, as if he had been sitting by the phone. ‘I've been so worried. I tried calling you all yesterday but –'

‘I'm so sorry, Grandad.' Bella explained
what had happened. The line crackled a little as she spoke, so she went into her room and stood by the window.

‘Oh dear,' he said. ‘That does sound difficult. But surely they won't really cut the house?'

‘They said they would.' Bella looked around her. Where would they do it, she wondered? Over by the bed? Or here by the window? If they went down the middle they would go straight through the glass.

If they did, would they put it back together
good as new
? Or
maybe even better
? Square and sensible like a normal window. Easier to get glass for. Easier to build around. You wouldn't need a special tool like Grandad had used. It had taken him hours to shape the ends of these boards into their smooth, careful curves.

Bella ran the fingers of her free hand along the wood. Where the wall met the window, the yellow paint flaked a little beneath her touch, revealing the pale blue beneath.

She smiled. And then she peered closer, squinting. Because there was something else there too. Not just blue but green – spidery lines of dark green, reaching and curling this way and that.

Like wrinkles, she thought, or lines on a map.

She worked a fingernail under the edge of the paint, picking gently at it. And then she caught her breath, because the paint was not flaking now but lifting, a long rubbery strip peeling away along the line of the window.

And underneath were not wrinkles or lines but letters – the sharp corners of an ‘M', the smooth curves of an ‘a'.

Grandad was silent, waiting for Bella to speak. She could almost see him there in the lounge room, leaning back in the comfy chair he always settled in when he was on the phone.